Soho House boss under fire for ‘grotesque’ Cotswolds mansion plan compared to Disneyland attraction

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Louise Thomas

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The boss of Soho House has come under fire from residents of the sleepy Cotswolds village of Little Tew over plans to build a “grotesque” mansion that’s been compared to a Disneyland attraction.

American businessman Ron Burkle, 71, who purchased a majority share in the private members club in 2012, first submitted the controversial plans to West Oxfordshire District Council in 2022, but they were rejected for several reasons, including the “urbanising and transformative” effect the house would have on the landscape.

This summer, Mr Burkle attempted to try his luck again in creating “a country house and gardens” complete with a “stables courtyard, new highway accesses, solar array, drainage works and landscape proposals, including a new lake.”

Other features outlined in the new proposal, which is still pending consideration, include a “reduced scale” stable and courtyard in light of the previous rejection and increased insulation to make the build more environmentally friendly. As well as this, the proposed property has now been given the name Serpentine Lodge.

Residents of Little Tew, which had a population of just 253 people in the 2011 census, however, have made their voices known on the planning application from the billionaire, flooding it with objection comments.

One resident complained that the new plans are almost identical to those rejected two years ago. “I would simply say that most of the reasons that the previous proposal for this site was rejected apply equally to this revised submission,” they wrote.

A second agreed, adding: “I totally agree with the view that this new application does not differ significantly from the previous one and should be rejected again on the same grounds.”

The village of Little Tew has just 150 homes, a church, and is so quiet that it does not even have a local pub or any shops.

As stated on the village’s website, preserving the small community and its heritage is of huge importance to its residents, who note that its centre is a conservation area “that contains a number of ‘Grade II’ listed buildings dating from the seventeenth century and built of the local limestone.”

Referring to the historic status of the village’s buildings, another resident objected: “The new design continues to be a pastiche.

“It takes design elements from numerous stately homes, large public buildings and Oxford colleges, and amalgamates too many features into a design more suited to Disneyland and is, therefore, an insult to the RIBA … No consideration has been given to buildings in local villages, many of which have stood for centuries.”

Yet another resident wrote in objection: “Rather than being a development of ‘truly outstanding quality’, I believe it to be a proposal of truly outstanding grotesquery.”

One resident even went as far as to compare the six-bedroom mansion to a tumour, writing: “its North-East boundaries are only c15m, like an oversized tumour encroached on a pretty face.” [sic]

Acknowledging that they were not alone in their objection, they added: “Adjectives which many have voiced and which seem more appropriate would be ‘ludicrous’ and ‘monstrous’.”

The Little Tew parish consultation added: “This development does nothing for the local area or its inhabitants, but has the potential to cause irreversible destruction to extensive flora and fauna, and the conservation area in which it thrives.”

While the plans explicitly state that the new build will be a private property and not a commercial one, should it go ahead, it will be just a few miles away from the Soho Farmhouse retreat.

The Independent has reached out to Little Tew Parish Council for comment.